The Day After

The sun is rising over the center of the Empire as we continue our 2007 Christmas Lift. This morning, the day after Christmas, we are en route to JFK with 140 passengers, i.e., ten empty seats. Everyone seems to be in a festive holiday mood, especially for New Yorkers. I am thankful to the Spirit of Christmas and thin atmosphere for the tranquilizing effect. My flight attendants are three newbies. The aerial combat veterans (senior flight attendants) are home today with their loved ones.

I was able to spend Christmas Eve at home with the wife of my youth. We had a good day and a great get together with friends and family. Christmas morning, though, the main hydraulics raised the landing gear into the wells at 0845 hrs as we began this four day trip.

Why was I not able to stay home on Christmas Day? Well, generally speaking, only the pilots at the very top of the seniority list can hold Christmas Day off, and I'm not up there in that rarefied air. I can see it, but cannot yet touch that sacred ground. Someday...

Distance to go: 850 miles
Altitude: 37,000 feet; still too heavy for 39,000
Fuel flow: 5200 lbs./hr

Christmas Lift

Position: 80 miles west of Topeka

Altitude: 35,000 feet

Groundspeed: 600 mph (521 kts)

Outside Air Temperature: -58 C.

Winds Aloft: Out of the west at 81 mph (70 knots)

Destination: Boston

The 2007 Christmas lift has started! System wide, our aircraft are full of folks going to the homes of their loved ones, and all this with gasoline at $3.00 p/gal. Amazing! I would have bet big money that out seats would be empty because of gas prices. Where will the breaking point be? Who knows?

Maybe The Shadow knows... (you have to be sort of a geezer to understand this one...)

The three-quarter moon is painting the wing tops silver as we cross the great bread basket of the Empire. Ahead of us, Topeka is lying below a thin and wispy cloud veil. A few miles beyond, Kansas City is a faint glow on the eastern horizon. We are approaching the half-way point to Boston's Logan Airport. The local time is 0105 hrs. (1:05 AM). My co-pilot, a young father of three young children, is struggling to stay awake. This is a common scenario in my world of night flying. The FAA mandates that pilots must stay awake during night operations, but they do not allow for the demands of rearing children, or the circadian rhythm of the body.

Consequently, I must be absolutely sure that I remain alert seven miles above the Kansas wheat fields. Aviator oxygen plays a big part in my quest for consciousness, as well as... Well, all the things we used to do to stay awake are now illegal. For example, working the sudoku puzzle in the USA Today, or chatting with the 23 year old Jessica Simpson look alike about her boyfriend problems. All these things are now deemed by the FAA to be dangerous and unacceptable. The one thing that is allowed is talking about any subject with the co-pilot as long as it is not in the sterile cockpit envelope (take-off to 10,000 feet above the ground) or in the climb phase above 10,000 feet. During level cruise flight we can talk about anything that is not politically incorrect... Yes, you read that correctly.

Over in the right seat, my only connection to late night/early morning chat is about unconscious. The most common question I am asked by my co-pilots is, "How in the h**l do you do these red-eyes all the time?"

How do I do it? I am approaching 21,000 hours of flight time and the majority of it is at night. For years, I flew at night because that is what my seniority held. Nowadays, I feel safer under the black canopy for numerous reasons:

1. Air traffic is easier to see.

2. Weather is easier to deal with, as in thunderstorms are collapsing in the cool night air (usually).

3. Runway approach lights are easier to see.

4. Mega-airports are more manageable.

5. I don't know any better.

And so it goes seven miles above the grain elevators in Manhattan, Kansas. Is anyone listening down there? That faint whisper above the clouds is me... Eastbound with 150 loved ones.

Seven Minutes

Range = ground speed/average fuel flow x fuel in tanks





I have figured the touchdown fuel a dozen times and keep coming up with the same result. Not enough! The winds aloft are much stronger than forecast and show no signs of abating. At the last fuel checkpoint, we were down 1,800 pounds. I asked my co-pilot, a young Navy P-3 pilot, to back me up on the math. His estimate: Anchorage fuel... Marginal, at best.



I can feel it coming... An unscheduled fuel stop in the Empire's northwest corner. Outside, under the God of War, Mars, the winds are unbelievably strong; more than 200 m.p.h. The forecast called for 130 m.p.h. Instead of being frustrated, I am thankful that I am able to witness such power. If an explosive decompression happened at this altitude, we would have about 10 seconds to put the oxygen masks on before unconsciousness, yet even in this hostile world of ultra-thin atmosphere, the winds are Jovian-like. I am reminded, once again, that such things are above my pay-grade.

After several email exchanges with Mother, I have decided to land in Portland for re-fueling. Not so fast, Captain... Look at the gross weight. We are above landing weight at Portland. Too much fuel, yet not enough. OK, we will hold for 15 minutes and burn down to landing weight. Could we land at Vancouver and not hold? Yep, but the weather is better at Portland.

We have another problem... My co-pilot is tight on duty time. Crew scheduling pulled him from another cockpit for this flight. Another thing that is above my pay grade, i.e., the workings of crew scheduling. The diversion is going to be time critical. If we have a glitch during re-fueling, we will be stuck, along with 124 passengers, in Portland. I ask the co-pilot to take over flying and communication duties, i.e., single pilot operation, while I talk to Portland operations. I know these guys personally and get along well with the station manager, who, much to my delight, is working tonight. He understands the gravity of the situation... The possibility of dealing with 124 stressed out passengers for the night. Yikes!

Portland is low IFR ( bad weather), of course, which calls for a Boise alternate. The co-pilot and I carefully review the approach procedure during the fuel burn down hold. It is critical that we be on speed and altitude at the outer marker. A missed approach translates to dealing with stranded passengers. Finally, approach control clears us for the ILS approach to runway 10 Right; call the tower on final, please. The outside air temperature is well below freezing as we descend into the murky world surrounding Portland. Wing heat and engine heat are "ON". The co-pilot calls out "localizer and glide slope alive." I ask for the landing gear and flaps nearing the final approach fix. We are in a snow tunnel created by the landing lights. The flakes are rushing past us at 160 m.p.h. There are no other visual references.

The runway environment comes into view at 400 feet above the ground. The snow has changed to rain. Wipers on high... Ahead, the rabbit (lead in strobe lights) is flashing toward the runway's end. It is a nasty night... Wet, windy and cold. Fi-Fi enunciates "200; 100; 50; 20; (thrust levers back to idle/kick out the crosswind) 10; 5... Touchdown on a wet runway; reverser triggers up and over the thrust levers. Fi-Fi gets with the stopping program...

A few minutes later, as we approach the gate, we can see six rampers in yellow rain gear scrambling for our arrival. The fuel truck is waiting with amber lights flashing. This might work. The outside air temperature is 38 degrees with light rain. If we are lucky, we will not have to de-ice. The lead ramper crosses the batons; I bring Fi-Fi to a stop and set the parking brake/fuel flows "OFF."

I tell the co-pilot,"Get on your cell phone and get a wheels up time from crew scheduling. I will do the pre-flight and get the paperwork. Start loading the nav with your best guess of the route to Anchorage; we can clean it up later." The jetway stairs are wet and slippery as I descend them to the ramp. My flashlight is a light saber spearing the rain drops... Fi-Fi is dripping water on me as I check her beautiful, long legs and large, uh, engine cowlings. The brakes are steaming... This is my world.

The station manager walks up to me with the flight paperwork, which is quickly becoming wet. His face is deep inside the yellow rain hood, yet his upper lip is dripping water. We trade insulting banter back and forth about each others abilities; especially, my ability to figure fuel burn to Anchorage. I would not expect anything less...

After I am satisfied that there is no ice on Fi-Fi, I climb the jetway stairs to a dryer environment. The passengers are looking at me with a was this really necessary expression on their faces. My flight attendants are three hardened veterans of the not so friendly skies and have the situation under control in the cabin. In the jetway, two station personnel are biting their fingernails in dread. We are just minutes away from bingo duty time for the co-pilot. The co-pilot has the flight deck ready... We are waiting for the fueler now.

A few minutes later, with fuel slip in hand. I tell the lead flight attendant to close the cabin door. The jetway is pulled back and the tug starts pushing on Fi-Fi. We have been at the gate for twenty minutes... Not bad.

Both engines are idling and the checklists are done. We have seven minutes to go before the co-pilot's must take-off time, i.e., he turns into a pumpkin grounded in Portland. The visibility is about one mile with low ceilings and rain; air temperature still holding at 38 degrees. Portland tower clears us for take-off... The co-pilot is the flying pilot to Anchorage and advances the thrust levers slowly to stabilize the engines, then shoves them to the forward stops. Both of us switch our wipers on high for the take-off roll. Fi-Fi, loving the cool conditions, accelerates viciously toward the end of the wet runway. It feels like she is skimming above the concrete. The engines are 100 degrees cooler than a normal summertime take-off. It does not get any better than this... By the time I think about the engine temperatures we are blowing through the take-off speed. I call out "Vee-one... Rotate." In a few seconds, the dark, wet clouds swallow us.

Two hundred miles down the airway...

We are back underneath the star dome, nose in the alien wind, but with plenty of fuel. Our groundspeed is less than 345 m.p.h. (300 knots). A #2 pencil time and distance calculation shows us arriving Anchorage two hours late, plus or minus 10 minutes. I figure the fuel stop cost about 45 minutes; the rest is wind.

Life on the line continues...

Feline Ju-Ju

OK, the deal was this... My wife attracted this stray cat with a bowl of milk after our last dog died from old age. She said, "Oh, Honey, look... What are we going to do with it?" I thought, "Call the animal catcher?" But I did not say it...

12 years later...

The cat lived in the back yard/garage for a few years with a "No Indoor" policy in force. My wife said that she, "Couldn't take the cat hair." This rule was only a temporary setback for the cat, as it began to use feline ju-ju on my wife and I. Only cat owners/staff can understand this phenomena. The result... Now, she comes in the house at will.

How did this happen?

Clock Watching

Day number four of a four day trip...



It is 0651 hrs. home time, but 0351 hrs. circadian time. I have no idea what the local time is and, at this hour of the morning, I don't really care. We have been en route 2 hours and 34 minutes and have put 1,100 nautical miles in our six o'clock requiring a fuel burn of 16,000 pounds. The black pit between Anchorage and Vancouver is behind us... My co-pilot is about unconscious as he is not used to this night stuff.

We are starting to see, or rather I am starting to see a small bump of twilight on the eastern horizon. When the fuel burn off allows, I have been step climbing. We are now at 37,000 feet with a quartering tailwind. The ride conditions are absolutely smooth. A few minutes ago, the number one flight attendant told me that almost everyone in the back is asleep.

When I checked in for this trip, there were company and union propaganda letters in my mail slot. The company said everything is going well and we have a rosy future; the union said everything is bad and the future looks grim. The truth lies somewhere in between. I think I will read them again, in different order, and see if that moves the pointer of doom right or left on the Life on the Line scale. We are not supposed to read anything unrelated to the operation of the aircraft while in-flight, but this stuff was in my mail slot, so it must be approved.

After this trip, I have 50 hours at home, then another four day. Clock watching continues...